Pres­i­dent says EFF are wel­come to re­turn

“THERE are peo­ple who in­sulted the ANC be­cause of anger, how­ever when they are alone and upon re­flec­tion they re­alise that they made a mis­take,” the MK Mil­i­tary Vet­er­ans As­so­ci­a­tion (MKMVA) said yes­ter­day.

The state­ment came in the wake of an ANN7 and The New Age ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Pres­i­dent Ja­cob Zuma, in which Zuma said the ANC had al­ways been open with re­gards to the EFF com­ing back to the 105-year-old party.

MKMVA pres­i­dent Kebby Maphat­soe said if the EFF de­cided to come back to the ANC, there would be no judge­ment.

“They would come back as new mem­bers and fol­low the rules and reg­u­la­tions of the ANC. That is what we would ex­pect from them,” Maphat­soe said.

The EFF was formed in 2013 af­ter an ac­ri­mo­nious split from the ANC.

The ANC ex­pe­ri­enced a pre­vi­ous split that gave raise to Cope in 2008.

Zuma said unity was of para­mount im­por­tance es­pe­cially ahead of the ANC elec­tive con­fer­ence in De­cem­ber.

“The ANC wants unity, it wants many peo­ple to come to­gether. We are not go­ing to say no to any­body who wants to work with the ANC, but the specifics can’t be seen now,” Zuma said.

Re­gard­ing the EFF, Zuma said the its top lead­er­ship is from the ANC.

“I think its in­abil­ity to cre­ate a pol­icy bet­ter than the ANC’s is the EFF’s dilemma. Can the EFF say that they are bet­ter than the ANC?”

Zuma was adamant that peo­ple did not blindly be­lieve the EFF just be­cause they were able to shout louder.

“They want to hear con­tent. That is the dif­fi­culty the EFF is faced with.

The EFF was not cre­ated be­cause they dis­agreed with the poli­cies of the ANC.

That pos­si­bil­ity of the EFF re­turn­ing, I am sure peo­ple might come to their senses and say is it not help­ing the coun­try to shout at one an­other ev­ery­day in­stead of work­ing to­gether to change South Africa,” Zuma said.

PIC­TURES: REUTERS

PO­LIT­I­CAL HOME: There will be no judge­ment against Julius Malema’s EFF, should the party opt to re­turn to the ANC fold.